‘Washington fails to isolate Russia’

William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. He has lectured as Visiting Professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology and delivers talks and private seminars around the world on subjects of current importance from economics to oil geopolitics to agribusiness. A widely discussed analyst of current political and economic developments, his provocative articles and analyses have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines and well-known international websites. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal and member of the editorial board of Eurasia magazine. Based in Frankfurt, Germany he may be reached via his website www.williamengdahl.com

The US has been trying to isolate Russia by imposing sanctions, but it has only produced the opposite effect and brought Russia closer to China and other BRICS countries, William Engdahl, author of ‘A Century of War’, told RT.

The US President, Barack
Obama, has recently given aninterview to CNNwhere he said that the US “had
brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine...”

RT:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
has said Obama's words are a clear confirmation of America's
involvement in the Ukrainian shift of power. Do you think
Washington is responsible for the violence that followed?

William Engdahl: There is no question about it
that they are responsible. I think president Obama sadly regrets
his wording on the interview last night because he de facto
admitted as [Foreign] Minister Lavrov also indicated that the US
created a de facto coup d’état, brought neo-Nazis in the power,
brought oligarchs in the power to replace oligarchs that were
democratically elected at least. They have fed the violence with
Blackwater mercenaries with other soldiers that they have been
training in various NATO countries and with hundreds of CIA on
the ground, special forces on the ground. And this has been
documented; people have been captured in the East Ukraine in
recent days with the thick London accent. I’ve seen YouTube
videos myself.

RT:President Obama also touched upon
Washington's role in the Russian economy. He also said that he
established effective working relations with former Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev. Do you think Washington is now
determined to bring Russia's economy down?

WE: That is certainly clear. They are determined
to balkanize Russia into a de facto dead state over the next few
years if they can get away with that… I don’t think they will
though. The indication of praise for Medvedev, and Medvedev view
is highly significant because many economic advisors around the
prime minister happened to have trained in the US, they are the
spiritual children of Yegor Gaidar and the IMF shock-therapy
mafia that almost virtually destroyed Russia before Putin came at
his first term as president and simply drew the line and said,
“We have to rebuild Russia.”

So Obama has been very clear, he has tried to send his signal to
a pro-free market fraction inside Moscow in the government, in
the bureaucracy to try to go against Putin. And that is a very
stupid policy. But Washington has been making very many stupid
policies of late in Syria, in Iraq, in covert backing for ISIL
[Islamic State, IS or ISIS] and now the catastrophe in Ukraine.
Washington seems to be very strong in stupidity these days in its
foreign policy.

RT:America's key general in Europe has said
the US is again contemplating sending lethal aid to Kiev's
forces. How could flooding the country with arms impact the
conflict?

WE: It certainly won’t help. The illegitimate
government... the elections were sham last year. There was a
military coup d’état that was sponsored by the CIA and the US
Special Forces that brought Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko into power
and that’s illegitimate. And the people of Ukraine deserve a
genuinely free election to decide who they want to rule over
them. And I assure you that they will not vote in a bunch of
neo-Nazis and Pravy Sektor [Right Sector] and oligarchs like
[President Petro] Poroshenko or the others that are around him.

The situation is the country is being destroyed and the policy is
being led by a group of neo-conservatives, the generalists backed
by Susan Rice who is a part of a gaggle… Victoria Nuland, Susan
Rice and others that were bought into Obama administration as
so-called liberal neo-cons or neo-conservatives. And that’s the
hawk faction of Dick Cheney and G. W. Bush of the previous
administration. They are the same people that are running this
war policy on behalf of the US military industrial complex. And
they are threatened by the rise of Russia.

Ironically the very economic financial warfare that Washington
has launched through the US Treasury in recent months, the
sanctions so-called, is an active war, have produced the opposite
effect. It’s brought Russia closer to China, it’s brought China
closer to Russia, it’s brought an integration among the BRICS
countries: Brazil, South Africa, Russia, China and India, it’s
brought India and Russia closer together. [It is] so far from
isolating Russia.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.